Current medical imaging technology includes the use of medical images such as, among others, x-rays, mammograms, computerized tomography (CT) scans, magnetic resonance images (MRIs), positron emission tomography (PET) scans and ultrasound images. Some medical facilities, such as doctors' offices, dentists' offices, hospitals, etc., may use x-ray illuminators to view physical printouts of medical images. However, medical facilities are beginning to adopt electronic displays for displaying medical images.
As medical facilities adopt electronic displays, medical personnel, such as doctors, nurses or medical technicians, have difficulty accessing a plurality of pieces of medical information at once. Previously, with x-ray illuminators, for example, a plurality of physical x-ray image films may be hung against a backlit screen of an x-ray illuminator. Additionally, medical personnel had the ability to hang other relevant medical information, such as medical records, charts, surgery procedures, etc., in a side-by-side manner with one or more x-rays.
Upon adopting electronic displays to display medical information, medical personnel are required to open a separate display screen for each piece of medical information. This requires the medical personnel explaining the medical information to continually switch amongst the open windows, which is often clumsy and confusing for the medical personnel as well as for the viewer. For example, a doctor may be explaining an injury using a plurality of x-rays to a patient. By switching between the plurality of open windows, one for each x-ray, it is foreseeable that the doctor and patient may become confused, or the patient might not fully understand the injury and the potential treatment options as a result.
However, one advantage of switching to electronic displays is that adjusting viewing properties for one or more medical images has become easier (e.g., attributes of the one more medical images). For example, adjusting the brightness level of an image on a computer for display on the display screen is easier and more convenient than adjusting the light source of an x-ray illuminator. However, when medical personnel adjusts one or more viewing properties (e.g., zoom level, brightness level, contrast level, etc.) of one or more medical images in order to draw a conclusion on the injury and/or treatment required, the medical personnel is required to recall the adjustments the next time the one or more medical images are displayed. For example, when a doctor increases a zoom level and then increases a contrast level on an x-ray in order to determine, for example, that a fracture is present in the ulna of the patient's left hand, the doctor will have to recall the amount of increase in the zoom level and contrast level when illustrating the fracture to the patient or to a surgeon. Additionally, the doctor may also have to recall the arrangement of a second medical image (or other medical information) that was used in drawing a conclusion regarding the fracture and/or possible treatment options. In some instances, a particular viewing arrangement, e.g., a side-by-side comparison of two medical images having different perspectives of an injury wherein one or more of the medical images have had viewing properties adjusted, may be critical in seeing the injury.
Furthermore, relaying information as to how to adjust the viewing properties and a particular arrangement of medical information to medical personnel located remotely from the medical personnel creating the arrangement is very difficult. For example, if a doctor in California is examining a patient with severe head trauma and would like a second opinion of the diagnosis from the foremost expert in head trauma, who happens to be at a hospital in France, it would be very difficult, currently, for the doctor in California to relay information as to how the medical information (images, notes, medical records, etc.) should be arranged and how the viewing properties of one or more of the medical images should be adjusted.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method of generating a display screen that enabled a doctor to save the state of an arrangement of a plurality of pieces of medical information, including the preservation of any adjusted viewing properties, such that the saved state may be easily recalled in the future.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.